At 7PM CST tonight we'll be streaming the Conference Call live! Be sure to tune into our Twitch TV channel to catch the feed and participate in the live chat. We'll talk Diablo III beta, gaming preservation and a whole lot more. Promise.

Show is done. Thanks for joining us!

Every year the GWJ community gets together and comes up with something awesome and creative to raise money for Child's Play. This year Oilypenguin and his band of rebels have produced an amazing poster design from community member bombsfall.

You can pre-order this wonderful 14" X 20" poster for only $20 with all proceeds going to Child's Play! It's a great cause and you'll get something lovely to hang on your wall in return. Thanks to all of the community members involved in making this happen! You can discuss how amazingly talented bombsfall is in the official thread.

As announced on the latest podcast, we're giving away three Tribes: Ascend beta keys on next week's show! All you have to do is email us your fondest Tribes memories and we'll enter you in the draw. We'll read a bunch on the show as well and reminisce about the good old days. Just hit the contact link on the top of the page here and hit us with the memories!

Tribes: Ascend is the upcoming free to play online game that plays a lot like Tribes 2. This is a good thing. Feels great and even in an early beta form it's a ton of fun. Join us!

As is becoming our usual practice, we'll be streaming the show live as we record it this Saturday at 7PM CST, 8PM EST. This week we have a special treat for the folks who decide to tune in. We have a beta key for Tribes: Ascend that we'll give away to a lucky listener in the chat room. Be sure to join us for good times and a chance to win!

Don't worry if you can't make it to the live show. We'll also be kicking off a contest to win some more keys soon.

Tribes: Ascend is the free to play spiritual sucessor to Tribes 2. They're just entering closed beta right now and you can guarantee access by pre-ordering the VIP package.

Tomorrow is the first day of Movember. This year I have pledged to shave my precious beard on November 1st and grow a mustache for the next 30 days. I'm not alone, already the GWJ Movember group has seven brave men ready to shave and grow for the cause.

If your obligations prevent you from growing a glorious mustache, you can still donate! If you're a lady and you simply cannot grow one, hard as you may try, you can sign up and show your support as a mo sista.

Prostate cancer is second only to non-melanoma skin cancer in the US alone as the leading cancer among men. In 2007, 223,307 were diagnosed and those numbers are growing every day. My father-in-law is among the many fighting this difficult disease. I hope you'll join us in supporting this important research and raising awareness among men that getting checked routinely is essential. Early detection saves lives!

This Saturday, October 15th will be International GWJ Day! A special day where people all over the place get together, play games and have an awesome time. To help you find any events happening in your area (or post you own) oilypenguin has compiled a list of the gatherings that are happening so far. Note that these are not "official" events per se. It's all a wonderful, community grass-roots movement. If you're in any of these areas, be sure to let them know in their relevant threads that you'd like to attend!

As part of the event we'll be recording a live Conference Call podcast on Saturday evening (specific times soon) so even if you can't make it to an event, you can still be part of the day. We'll be drawing the donation drive prizes, taking questions from the chat room and generally mucking about. Be sure to tune in!

Finally, all proceeds from the IGWJD shirts go to Child's Play. Check those out here.

If you've been procrastinating on donating to the site, now is the time! The doors close tomorrow at midnight and after that we won't open them again for a year. No forum icon, no chance to win awesome prizes or to support your internet home away from home that you visit at work. Free consoles, Steam shopping sprees, Magic cards and even a custom golden icon could be yours! Hit this page for details on how to donate.

We will be posting a final donor list soon and you'll have plenty of time to get on there before we do the big prize draw next month. I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for the support. Sean and I have both been through a lot over the past nine years but the future of GWJ has never been in doubt. We feel a great deal of responsibility for making sure what we're doing here is worth your hard-earned dollars and more importantly, your precious time on this earth. I'm so proud of all the gatherings, game nights and personal support you've all built within and around our little ecosystem here. Thanks for continuing to inspire us to keep at it!

The tech world caught fire today with Amazon announcing their new Kindle devices. A 6" screen e-ink reader for as little as $79 ($109 without ads). A touchscreen Kindle Touch for $99 or $139 if you want one without any ads. Finally, the Kindle Fire is a $199 Android tablet with a ton of custom software that gives you access to all of Amazon's services. It looks pretty damn good.

Kindle e-Reader
Kindle Touch
Kindle Fire

If you're planning to get on that pre-order bandwagon, please use the links in this post and GWJ will get a kick-back on the proceeds. It won't cost you anything extra and you can use it justify your impulse purchase. Win win! Note: this only works for the US Amazon store.

We are fewer than 10 days out from the end of the 2011 Donation Drive, and as always we are impossibly grateful at the outpouring of support. I particularly would like to thank all of you who passed along a kind word or personal note; it's made an enjoyable task of managing the drive all that much better. While I've only been able to reply to a few of you, please know I sincerely appreciate the notes.

Along with an updated list of donors -- just under 410 supporters so far -- I'd like to go ahead and thank the team at Wizards of the Coast for adding on to our already pretty cool prize pool for the donation drive. They are sending along a bundle of Magic the Gathering 2012 intro packs and boosters for our giveaway. Add that to a prize pool that already includes some phenomenal artwork from our friends at Irrational Games, a Steam shopping spree, a custom forum icon and of course a console, video card and portable system of your choice.

I remain enthusiastic that we can break 2010's donation drive results, which saw 580 donors, and of course there is always that mythical 600 donor barrier looming just within striking distance. To support the site, help us reach our goal and just join the cool kids in general, see this post. But, for now I really just want to thank all of you who have donated to date.

Thanks go out to ...

Did you think we'd run a donation drive without fabulous prizes? We deeply appreciate the support from the community and our favorite way of saying thanks is by enhancing your gaming lives with some cool swag. We're tweaking our process just a little bit this year. The prize draw will be during International Goodjer Day on October 15th. To be entered into the draw, you just need to donate $10 or more to the site or attend an Internation Goodjer Day event. Easy! For details on how to donate hit this post. If you're attending an Internatonal Goodjer Day event, let the organizer know and we'll have them send us a final attendee list.

So what kind of prizes we talking here? How about a new console? A handheld perhaps? How about a custom, one-of-a-kind golden forum icon?

We also have a very cool set of signed Bioshock: Infinite propaganda posters donated from our good friends at Irrational Games!

Read on for full prize details!